Hydrophones are commonly employed as underwater listening devices. In most instances these hydrophones are stationary, and the acoustic signals sensed by the hydrophones are communicated to a receiving module where they may be processed or telemetered to still another receiving station. Hydrophones may also be mounted upon a vehicle and moved around to obtain acoustic signals at various locations in the ocean. Whenever a hydrophone is attached to a vehicle, there is always the problem of the vehicle's self noise which is imposed on the listening hydrophone. One method of minimizing this problem is to deploy the hydrophone via a tethered cable to some location aft of the vehicle. While this arrangement works quite satisfactorily in minimizing vehicle noise, a serious problem accrues in deploying the cable without entanglement with itself or about portions of the vehicle. In one prior art embodiment where a torpedo shaped vehicle was utilized, the cable was wrapped directly around a steering control shroud ring at the aft end of the vehicle. This arrangement frequently resulted in entanglement of the cable and a loss of the function of the hydrophone.